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bytedance-confirms-tiktok-will-be-controlled-by-us-owners

ByteDance confirms TikTok will be controlled by US owners

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According to Trump, the deal ensures that TikTok complies with the divest-or-ban law, but the White House is still not providing more details. Instead, the Trump administration “referred questions about the deal to TikTok,” Reuters reported.

If the deal closes as expected on January 22, the new US company will have an estimated value of $14 billion, Vice President JD Vance noted in September.

At that point, the deal will likely face mounting scrutiny from lawmakers, including Republicans, who aren’t yet sure if the US operation resolves all national security concerns. Chinese control of the algorithm was a particular sticking point for critics, who claimed that Trump was giving China exactly what it wanted: international recognition for exporting leading technology to the US.

In September, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R.-Iowa) vowed to take a “hard line” and oppose the deal’s framework if it violates the divest-or-ban law. Already, Representative John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on China, is planning to hold a hearing next year with US TikTok leadership.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has accused Trump of handing over “even more control of what you watch to his billionaire buddies,” through the TikTok deal, which she likened to enabling a “billionaire takeover of TikTok.” Many TikTokers likely share her concerns, after Trump suggested he’d like to see his hand-picked investors tweak the algorithm to be “100 percent MAGA.”

Questions remain until the exact terms of the deal become public, Warren said.

ByteDance did not respond to Ars’ request to comment.

With the terms obscured, it’s unclear how quickly TikTok may change in 2026 under US ownership. In July, the Information reported that when approximately 170 million US users get ported over to the new US-owned app, it could be buggy.

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TikTok may become more right-wing as China signals approval for US sale

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TikTok US app may look radically different

If the sale goes through without major changes to the terms, TikTok could radically change for US users.

After US owners take over, they will have to retrain TikTok’s algorithm, perhaps shifting what content Americans see on the platform.

Some speculate that TikTokers may only connect with American users through the app, but that’s likely inaccurate, as global content will remain available.

While global content will still be displayed on TikTok’s US app, it’s unclear how it may be filtered, Kelley Cotter, an assistant professor who studies social media algorithms in the Department of Human-Centered Computing and Social Informatics at Pennsylvania State University, told Scientific American.

Cotter suggested that TikTok’s US owners may also tweak the algorithm or change community guidelines to potentially alter what content is accessed on the app. For example, during conversations leading up to the law that requires either the sale of TikTok to US allies or a nationwide ban, Republican lawmakers voiced concerns “that there were greater visibility of Palestinian hashtags on TikTok over Israeli hashtags.”

If Trump’s deal goes through, the president has already suggested that he’d like to see the app go “100 percent MAGA.” And Cotter suggested that the conservative slant of Trump’s hand-picked TikTok US investors—including Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz—could help Trump achieve that goal.

“An owner that has a strong ideological point of view and has the will to make that a part of the app, it is possible, through tweaking the algorithm, to sort of reshape the overall composition of content on the platform,” Cotter said.

If left-leaning users abandon TikTok as the app shifts to US ownership, TikTok’s content could change meaningfully, Cotter said.

“It could result in a situation,” Cotter suggested, where TikTok would be “an app that is composed by only people based in the US but only a subset of American users and particularly ones that perhaps might be right-leaning.” That could “have very big impact on the kinds of content that you see there.”

For TikTok’s US users bracing for a feared right-wing overhaul of their feeds, there’s also the potential for the app to become glitchy as all US users are hastily transferred over to the new app. Any technical issues could also drive users off the app, perhaps further altering content.

Ars updated this story on Oct. 30 to note that speculation that American users will be siloed off is inaccurate.

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